A page about Stevel Miller and the Pompitous Of Love. keywords: Steve Miller, Maurice, space cowboy, pompitous pompitus pampitous pampitus pompatous pompatus of love,
the joker, midnight toker, picker, grinner, lover, sinner, some people call me the space cowboy, gangster of love, love your peaches want to shake your tree,
I get my lovin' on the run, lyrics and info ** Please enable Javascript in your browser to use the navigation features on this site! **

the maurice zone

Pompitous -
what the hell's "Pompitous" mean?

"Pompitous" mystified millions when Steve Miller
used it in his 1973 hit "The Joker": "Some people call me the space
cowboy. / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love. / Some people call me
Maurice, / Cause I speak of the Pompitous of love."

"Space cowboy" and "gangster of love" referred to earlier Miller songs.
Maurice was from Miller's 1972 tune "Enter Maurice," which appeared on
the album "Recall the Beginning ... A Journey From Eden."

"Enter Maurice" had this lyric: "My Dearest Darling, come closer to
Maurice so I can whisper / sweet words of epismetology in your ear and
speak to you of / the pompitous of love."

Great, now we have two mystery words to track down... What's more, it
appeared even Miller himself was uncertain how pompitous was spelled. It
appeared as "pompatus" in at least two books of sheet music but as "pompitous"
in the lyrics included with "Recall the Beginning."

Miller has said little about the P-word over the years. In at least one
interview, fans say, he claimed, "It doesn't mean anything - it's just
jive talk." Not quite what researches show. Some sharp-eared music fan noticed the "Enter Maurice" lyric above bore
a marked resemblance to some lines in a rhythm and blues tune called
"The Letter" by the Medallions. The song had been a hit in R & B circles
in 1954.

If you can hunt down a recording of "The Letter", you'll hear the lines:
"Oh my darling, let me whisper sweet words of [something like
epismetology] and discuss the [something like pompatus] of love."

Jon Cryer, the actor, co-writer, and co-producer of the 1990s movie
Pompatus of Love, stumbled onto the secret of pompatus or pompitous.
Speculation about "pompatus" was a recurring motif in the script for The
Pompatus of Love. While the movie was in postproduction Cryer heard
about "The Letter." Eager to reveal his discovery to the world, he said,
while giving a TV interview, that the song had been written and sung by
a member of the Medallions named Vernon Green. Green, still very much
alive, was dozing in front of the tube when the mention of his own name
alerted his attention. He immediately contacted Jon Cryer.

Vernon Green had never heard "The Joker." Cryer says that when he played
it for Green, "He laughed his ass off."

"You have to remember, I was a very lonely guy at the time," Green told
Cryer. "I was only 14 years old, I had just run away from home, and I
walked with crutches." The young man scraped by singing songs on the
streets of Watts. One song was "The Letter," Green's attempt to conjure up his dream
woman. The mystery words, J.C. ascertained after talking with Green,
were "puppetutes" and "pizmotality." (Green wasn't much for writing
things down, so the spellings are approximate.)

" 'Pizmotality' described words of such secrecy that they could only be
spoken to the one you loved," Green told Cryer. And puppetutes? "A term
I coined to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure [thus puppet], who
would be my everything and bear my children." Not a really liberated
concept - but look, it was 1954.

"Puppetutes" is what Steve Miller heard as "pompatus"
or "pompitous." In other words, one of the great mystery lyrics of our
time was actually a word its author had misunderstood himself. Steve Miller must have loved R & B. Another line from "The Joker" goes
"I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree. / Lovey dovey, lovey
dovey, lovey dovey all the time."

A similar line may be found in the Clovers' 1953 hit "Lovey Dovey": "I
really love your peaches wanna shake your tree / Lovey dovey, lovey
dovey all the time."

Miller's publicist Jim Welch has said little about these remarkable
coincidences; he said Miller's comment was "artistic license." Pressed a
bit, Welch said Miller acknowledged that he'd been "influenced" by
earlier artists. Not perhaps the most forthcoming statement in the
world, but at least we now know it didn't come to him in a dream.

Vernon Green and the Medallions (Billy Foster,
Jimmy Green and Joe Williams) in front of LA's Orpheum Theatre in 1959

ADDENDUM:

The Medallions were one of many young vocal groups
on the now legendary Los Angeles scene during the 50's. And whilst lead
vocalist Green may not have had the stunning voice of some of his
contemporaries like Arthur Lee Maye, the group's efforts for the local
Dootone label have great charm and have withstood the test of time. Best
known for "The Letter" and "Buick 59", The Medallions were the first
doo-wop group to record for Dootone Records. Their first release, "Buick
69," (based on Todd Rhodes' double-entendre R&B hit "Rocket 69"), backed
with a ballad called "The Letter," was a double-sided West Coast hit.

Green, who was partly crippled from polio, formed the group with
Randolph Bryant, Andrew Blue and Ira Foley. They were spotted by Dootone
owner Dootsie Williams who was drawn to the 16 year-old Green's "bluesy
quality".

Shortly after performing at the Doo-Wop Society's "Tribute to Hunter
Hancock" show on March 4, 2000, Vernon Green suffered a debilitating
stroke and never recovered. He died on Christmas Eve, 2000. His brother
Jimmy Green and Billy Foster have continued The Medallions without him.
It is hoped that this site will allow his memory to receive the credit
he deserves.

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